Archetypes
by CannibalHat
Summary: Archetypes were models that were copied, patterned, or emulated; originals that others can only try to duplicate - like Mar. A hero Haven City really needed, thought Daxter (who was many things but an accomplished student). Daxter knew one day he'd be radically famous, but he didn't think it'd be as a Necromancer, much less the one who revived that centuries old legendary saviour.


**Jak and Daxter**

**(10/01/13)**

**Archetypes**

**Prologue**

Mar took a deep, slow breath with his eyes still closed and released it the same way. He was laying back somewhere cool and he felt very sluggish and heavy for some reason. His mouth was very dry and his body very stiff. It was an effort to open his eyes and blink them with almost sticky lids when it suddenly became apparent that someone was talking to his left as his eardrums vibrated with the noise of speech.

"Oh gosh– oh jeez– oh man! I'm in _big_ trouble!"

Mar felt his brow crease in confusion. For some reason he couldn't remember what he was doing prior to waking, nor what was going on or who was speaking – his mind drawing a very intelligent ".._wuh?_" He turned his head towards the source of the young, boyish voice and found a spiky flame-haired youth in a green cloak and covered with soot fidgeting and fretting about over the lip of what had to be a coffin he was lying on his back in.

As the boy muttered nervously to himself, it was worryingly difficult for Mar to sit himself up from where he was lying down on a raised platform in an elaborate ceremonial box that he slowly looked over in an uncomprehending manner. Sitting upright with his arms limp at his sides, Mar felt ill and saw he looked no better; he noticed blearily that his skin was ash-pale and too cool to the touch. And his attire.. he was in ceremonial death robes. Decked out in all white, the material was thin and a touch rumpled so it sat loosely and sigils of reddish paint stood out on his strangely pale bare flesh, peeking out from under the folds of cloth.

Observing the surroundings, Mar saw a small, domed dark room, lit by candles placed around the floor, tables and shelves with waxy droppings leaking everywhere they sat. The flames were dancing as the other occupant in the room paced and his cloak twirled about when turning in the other direction.

"I didn't think I could actually do it! I mean, I know I'm destined for greatness an' all, but–" and here the (far more naturally) pale-skinned and flame-haired boy looked back at him wildly. His face was tense like his body. The youth seemed short and wiry, the limbs thin, his stature was hunched almost self-consciously. The other's eyes were dark and blue and very wide with apprehension as he looked back at Mar who swayed where he sat and could barely keep his eyes open. Mar gripped the side of the coffin he had no idea why he was sitting in to keep his balance and tried to get up and move his mouth to speak at the same time but the movement seemed to agitate the young man further as he bemoaned:

"Oh Precursors! I really brought him back, didn't I? _I resurrected Mar!_"

(linebreak)

Everyone knew who Mar was, literally _everyone_. Aside from the bedtime stories one's mother would tell their children, Mar was also in history books and was in many "required reading" materials throughout schooling. There were also way too many facets of society that he influenced that one would have to go out of their way to _not_ know who Mar was.

Mar had a hand in everything from military strategy to clothing. He was the legendary figure who saved Sandover Village, and the world as they knew it, from consumption by Dark Eco infection at the hands of corrupt eco sages Gol and his sister Maia centuries ago. And he did it without conventional weaponry like they had today; only his fists, his wits, and his pure gift of channeling eco. Had he not, there wouldn't have been a Haven City, nor much of anything, really. The people of Haven City are descendants of those Sandover villagers after all. It would have started with the swift destruction of Sandover before it spread to the other villages until there _were_ no predecessors to give the people of today life.

Mar ensured that they could go on living this far.

And no one really knew what happened to him, what his "end" was. People kept speculating on his death for years, ranging all manner of ways. Some had even thought he gained immortality and went into hiding or the gods sequestered him away. Others began to believe, a long long time later, that he never existed at all and was only that – a story.

The House of Mar thought different of course, but was never divulged of their secrets.

Aside from being this distant, impossible legendary icon, Mar eventually faded away into stories and became a larger-than-life historical figure to read about and a statue to admire. He became the protagonist of children's bedtime stories, sounding more fantastical and make-believe as the years wore on.

Even Daxter himself thought of him as such; and now as Haven City was falling to ruin from within during the ongoing MetalHead wars, Daxter had been thinking about how there really should be someone out there to solve their problems by some miracle and magically end the war, the threat of the MetalHeads and Baron Praxis' tyranny. So they could finally, _finally_ be at peace and taste reprieve for themselves. Then he got to thinking about how there weren't many heroes anymore, how they could sure use one now; and he got to remembering Haven's hero, that Mar guy they used to have a special day dedicated to and have a parade for.

So when the Underground cracked open and into a tomb no one outside the House of Mar was supposed to have known the location of, Daxter didn't actually think Mar was a really real person with his own really real remains, much less be someone he could reanimate back to life!

Daxter was only an apprentice after all, a novice, he wasn't supposed to be capable of this and now his accidental success was sitting up from his coffin of sorts, looking more like a human being and was staring him straight in the eye looking very lost. Daxter really shouldn't have been talking to himself and having a mental meltdown but.. hoo boy.

Grandpa Green wasn't going to be very happy (not that he ever was anyway).


End file.
